A Malaysian factory worker who had spent nearly seven years building a life in South Korea was killed after going to help a friend caught up in a late-night confrontation, his family said – prompting an online fundraiser that collected about 80,000 ringgit (US$19,600) within a day to bring his body home. Ahmad Shah Ahmad Ros, 26, died in the early hours of Sunday in Daeso-eup, Eumseong county, about 130km (80 miles) southeast of Seoul. Local police have arrested a Malaysian man in his forties on...
A South Korean court on Monday sentenced former president Yoon Suk-yeol to 18 months in prison, suspended for three years, after finding him guilty of violating the election law by making false statements during his 2022 presidential campaign. The sentence, if upheld through appeals, could force Yoon’s People Power Party to return 39.7 billion won (US$27.1 million) in election expenses reimbursed by the National Election Commission following his presidential election victory. The Seoul...
In an industry built on going global, K-pop’s freshest phenomenon has succeeded by doing the exact opposite: staying home. Rescene, a five-member girl group from little-known agency The Muze Entertainment, debuted in 2024 but largely flew under the radar until recently. Now, they are the talk of the town – chart-toppers, brand ambassadors and a name that is suddenly inescapable across South Korea. No stadium tours preceded their rapid ascent from relative obscurity. No Hybe-scale marketing...
South Korea has returned a pair of Qing dynasty (1644-1911) marble sculptures to China, a symbolic gesture as the two nations work to repair bilateral ties through cultural diplomacy. The male and female lions, each standing 1.9 metres (6ft) tall and weighing 1.25 tonnes, were officially handed over by the Kansong Art Museum at a ceremony in Seoul on Thursday and were set to depart for China on Friday, according to the Chinese embassy. Senior cultural officials and diplomats from both nations...
The divorce, involving the chairman of one of South Korea's biggest companies, has gripped the nation.
A South Korean court on Friday ordered SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won to pay his former wife Roh Soh-yeong 944 billion won (US$644 million) in a divorce-related property division case, lower than a previous 1.38 trillion won award that had drawn scrutiny of his stake in the group’s holding company. If finalised, the ruling from the Seoul High Court would be South Korea’s most expensive divorce ever. Chey is worth about US$5.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with his...
Barely four months into its implementation, South Korea’s new labour-friendly law is coming under growing scrutiny as workers’ demands for bonuses tied to a fixed percentage of corporate profits spread across the country. If left unchecked, critics warn, the revised Trade Union and Labour Relations Adjustment Act – commonly known as the Yellow Envelope Act – could fuel labour disputes, create uncertainty for businesses and threaten an economy that is only beginning to recover. At the heart of...
South Korea has abandoned its campaign prioritising pressure on the North to dismantle its nuclear weapons, a minister said on Thursday, marking a fresh overture by Seoul’s dovish government. President Lee Jae Myung has reversed the stance of his hawkish predecessor since taking power in Seoul in June 2025, offering nuclear-armed Pyongyang talks without preconditions. The hermetic leadership of North Korea has yet to respond to his repeated offers. But in a Thursday meeting with local reporters,...
The woman, who had wanted to end her pregnancy at 36 weeks, gave birth to a baby who doctors later killed.
Labour unions are rallying across South Korea after Samsung Electronics caved in to protests and agreed to hand out bonuses of more than US$400,000 to some of its employees. Just this week, assembly-line workers at Hyundai Motor staged a three-day partial strike as they seek up to 30 per cent of consolidated profit to be set aside for bonuses. Meanwhile, unions at HD Hyundai Heavy Industries and telecoms operator LG Uplus want payouts equivalent to at least 30 per cent of operating profit, while...
South Korean prosecutors have charged Korean-American professor Morse Tan for criminal defamation over false claims targeting President Lee Jae Myung. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office reportedly indicted Tan without detention on Thursday on multiple defamation charges. Tan, who served as the US ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice under the first Donald Trump administration, is accused of spreading false allegations during a press conference in Washington last year. He...
A South Korean court’s conviction of Seoul’s mayor for illegal polling payments threatens to put an end to his presidential ambitions just weeks after he won a historic fifth term. Oh Se-hoon, the 65-year-old conservative who has led South Korea’s capital on and off for nearly two decades, was fined 10 million won (US$6,800) on Wednesday for violating the Political Funds Act ahead of the mayoral by-election in 2021. Under South Korean law, any elected official fined more than 1 million won for...
The owner of a South Korean Michelin-starred restaurant is facing one year in jail for garnishing a palate-cleansing sorbet with black ants “to add a sour taste”, local media said. Seoul prosecutors requested the prison term for the anonymous owner of the unnamed eatery at a Monday court hearing for violating food safety regulations, the reports said. Under South Korean law, only 10 insect species are approved for human consumption, including grasshoppers and brown mealworm larvae. But the...
Officials say the restaurant in South Korea used some 49,000 ants in various dishes over four years.
A leading Chinese brokerage house has ended market making for the mainland’s only South Korea-focused exchange-traded fund (ETF), as Beijing steps up efforts to stabilise its capital markets and protect retail investors amid volatility in its East Asian neighbour’s stock market. Shenzhen-headquartered China Merchants Securities withdrew as a liquidity provider for the Huatai-PineBridge China-Korea Semiconductor ETF barely a month after assuming the role on June 17, according to Shanghai Stock...
As Malaysia pushes to welcome 47 million international visitors under this year’s travel campaign, the country is setting its sights on bringing South Korean arrivals back above pre-pandemic levels by promoting authentic local experiences beyond its well-known beach resorts and city attractions. “South Korea is one of our priority markets,” Kamilia Hani Abdul Halim, director of Tourism Malaysia Seoul, said in an interview. Last year, about 558,000 South Koreans visited Malaysia, making it the...
South Korea plans to develop its own cybersecurity-focused artificial intelligence model by the end of this year, after a brief US clampdown on advanced systems exposed the risks of relying on foreign technology for national cyber defence. But Seoul’s more ambitious longer-term idea of building a frontier model capable of competing with the world’s most advanced systems would require it to overcome a persistent gap in AI software, computing capacity and large-scale training, analysts said. The...
South Korean food exporters are no longer treating Vietnam as just another market for kimchi, instant noodles and premium fruit. As Southeast Asia emerges as one of South Korea’s most important trading regions, Seoul is positioning Vietnam as a logistics and distribution base for a wider push to turn the popularity of Korean culture into sustained demand for Korean food across the region. But analysts said the strategy would depend on more than Hallyu-driven curiosity, with exporters needing to...
A group of Chinese travellers in South Korea successfully brought a runaway coach under control after the driver lost consciousness while driving, triggering heated discussions online. On Chinese social media, several passengers shared what they experienced on the limousine to Incheon International Airport in the afternoon of July 11. As the coach with 10 to 20 passengers headed towards the expressway close to Terminal 1, it suddenly bumped into the roadbed. A Chinese woman, surnamed Sun, was...
South Korea’s navy said on Monday it had recovered the body of a sailor off the east coast, a day after the seaman disappeared near the de facto sea border between the two Koreas. Authorities launched a large search involving 10 ships and aircraft after the sailor failed to report for duty on Sunday morning while the vessel was on patrol near the Northern Limit Line, the de facto maritime border between the neighbours. “A patrol boat participating in the search operation found the missing sailor...
Forget coffee or drinks, the latest dating trend in South Korea takes place somewhere very different, a Buddhist temple.
Dating can be hard in South Korea. A group of monks hope a 30-hour rural retreat can help.
The shares are set to start trading on the Nasdaq on Friday in what will be the largest ever debut by a foreign firm.
The United States is turning to South Korea’s world-leading shipbuilding industry as it seeks to refresh its ageing naval fleet, a move set to expand the bilateral alliance beyond security into defence manufacturing, technology and industrial production. According to analysts, the bid reflects Washington’s efforts to address long-standing problems in its own industry – such as chronic construction delays, cost overruns, shortages of skilled workers and supply chain constraints. It also marks a...
South Korea may have lost Canada’s multibillion-dollar submarine order, but analysts say its close-run contest with Germany has handed Seoul a different prize: proof that it can challenge one of the world’s traditional undersea warfare powers on a stage watched closely by defence buyers. Canada chose Germany’s Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) as the preferred bidder for a programme worth about US$40 billion to build up to 12 diesel-electric submarines, along with long-term maintenance and...
On his South Korea visit, the Minister invited Hyundai Mobis, LG Electronics and APACT to set up EV, semiconductor and electronics units; LG confirmed a ₹5,000-crore plant at Sri City
Minister promises speedy approvals and transparent governance, cites Kia’s success as a model for global investors
When South Korea’s national football team returned home on Tuesday after their shock group-stage exit from the 2026 World Cup tournament, the fury of fans was not targeted at captain Son Heung-min or other players. It was aimed at head coach Hong Myung-bo, who announced his resignation during a press conference in Guadalajara, Mexico – the tournament’s co-host – on June 28. South Korea lost 1-0 to Mexico and South Africa after opening their World Cup campaign with a 2-1 win over the Czech...
Ukraine’s unresolved decision regarding two North Korean prisoners of war who have said they want to go to South Korea has given Kyiv leverage as it presses Seoul to sell weapons for its war against Russia, observers say. The soldiers, captured in early 2025 after being deployed to Kursk to support Russia’s war effort, are considered South Korean nationals under Seoul’s constitution, which defines the entire Korean peninsula as the country’s territory. Seoul has said it would be willing to...
A viral YouTube video, a one-star review on a delivery app, a heated post on a parenting community – all of these will fall under the same legal standard in South Korea starting next Tuesday. The revised Information and Communications Network Act, widely known as the “fake news” law, introduces punitive damages for YouTubers with more than 100,000 subscribers and high-traffic TikTok accounts if they display what authorities define as “unlawful” content. Platforms such as Naver, Kakao, Google and...
Hong Myung-bo has resigned after South Korea failed to advance to the World Cup knockout stages.
South Korea’s US$518 billion semiconductor push aims to tap the artificial intelligence boom into a durable industrial advantage and keep up with leading rival China, according to observers. The plan is intended to secure supplies of advanced memory chips needed for AI data centres and computing infrastructure, while easing pressure on the Seoul metropolitan area by creating a second major chipmaking base in the country’s southwest. President Lee Jae Myung on Monday unveiled the government’s...